The middle-aged Dominican woman's nightmares are so terrifying she can barely talk about them -- or about the blood bath on St. Croix that triggered them.

Even now, 22 years later, she retains clear, violent images of the tall, thin Ishmael LaBeet standing in the entrance to Fountain Valley Golf Club, his machine gun blazing -- a machine gun with a chilling secret that would be shielded from the public for 22 years.

Even in sleep, the woman sees LaBeet's four accomplices, armed with shotguns and automatic pistols, randomly firing into guests and resort staffers lined up for a roast beef lunch buffet.

One of the survivors of the Fountain Valley massacre, the woman remembers all too vividly seeing eight people murdered in the furious hail of gunfire.

"I try never to think about it. It was the most horrible thing a person could think of."

ISHMAEL LABEET

1973 -- Convicted of Fountain Valley massacre.
1985 -- Hijacked airliner to Cuba when he was being transferred to mainland prison.
1994 -- Whereabouts unknown; last reorted seen in Cuba.

The massacre destroyed the world's impression of St. Croix as a tropical paradise and plunged the island's tourism economy into a two-decade-long tailspin.

Tourists everywhere associated the Virgin Islands with the machine-gun wielding LaBeet -- now called Ismail Ali -- a decorated but psychotic Vietnam War veteran.

But what few people know is that the machine gun in his hand in that bloody rampage did not come from an illegal gun dealer, nor was it smuggled into the territory.

It came from the St. Croix police property room.

Who took the gun -- one of two kept for special police work -- and gave it to Ali?

Police say it was one of their own. They believe lax security in the property room allowed a St. Croix cop to walk off, unnoticed, with the 30-inch-long, 5-pound weapon.

The property room, where the Police Department kept its firearms and equipment, was in the old police headquarters in a busy section of Christiansted.

"When we checked on the machine gun Ali had used, we discovered it was the same one that had been placed in the evidence room," recalls former police Capt. Ohanio Harris, one of the first cops on the scene at Fountain Valley.

"Evidence pointed to an officer who we believe gave Ali the weapon."

That officer was questioned but never charged. He resigned from the force shortly after the massacre and now works on St. Thomas.

Because he was not charged, police brass won't identify him, but the finger of blame points directly at the department's lax supervision and discipline.

Three years after the massacre, the Police Department moved the evidence room to the newly built Patrick Sweeney Police Headquarters.

But like the Fountain Valley nightmares, the problem of guns missing from the evidence room continues.